


Here There Be Dragons

by tempus_teapot (dreadnot)



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Drama, F/F, F/M, Gen, Humor, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 66
Words: 11,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadnot/pseuds/tempus_teapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A phrase meant to denote uncharted territories. Collection of ficlets exploring any pairing, all characters, and a variety of situations. Het, slash, gen, crack, angst, all in one 65 chapter chunk. (Of course, there are 70 more of these ficlets on <a href="http://tempus-teapot.tumblr.com/htbd-index">tumblr</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Will Never Be a Dragon

Years after Kirkwall, years of struggle and training later, Hawke mastered shapeshifting. At least, from the outside it appeared that he had mastered it. He could turn into a spider, a wolf, a bear, even a bereskarn or blight wolf, but it was never right. He was not truly a spider or a wolf, he was a man in spider chitin, wolf fur.

He was always still a man.

It frustrated him. No, that was too simple, it enraged him. He had been the Champion of Kirkwall. He had started the Circle Wars. He had survived demons, maleficarum, and dragons, but he had finally found the one battle he could not win.

He shifted through forms – the confused spider that could only manage to properly use four of its limbs, the wolf that relied more on its eyes than its nose and ears, the bear that tried to move like a man, and finally, his greatest failure…

… the power swirled, visible in the great cave's dim light, coalescing around the mage's body, shimmering and changing until the great terror sat in the cave, looking every inch the dragon.

Hawke looked out of the eyes the size of shields and dropped his head to the ground. He could look like a dragon, but his heart…

His heart would always be that of a man. It was his failing; it was his truest, deepest victory.


	2. Does It Get Crowded in There?

He had a habit, when he thought no one was paying attention, of talking to himself. Merrill idly kicked her feet where she lay sunning herself on a nearby boulder and eavesdropped on Anders while Hawke and Varric bickered over some detail of where to go next.

"No, no. Not like that, it doesn't work like that, people don't work like that."

"Something has to work, it cannot continue like this forever, it is unjust."

"The Maker left us to our own devices."

"So we must bring justice where He will not."

He startled guiltily when Merrill piped up to ask, "Do you have to close your eyes when you use the privy? Because he's looking too? What about when you and Hawke-?"

"Merrill!"

She glanced over her shoulder to see Hawke regarding her in exasperation.

"Oh! I'm sorry," she hurriedly said. "I didn't mean anything by it, but you have to admit it would be a bit much waking up in the middle of the night listening to him talk to himself in his sleep. Oh! I shouldn't have said that, but really, isn't it a bit crowded in there? It's crowded in my head all by myself."


	3. Kill it! Kill it with fire!

"Maker's breath!" Varric stumbled back with his breeches around his knees. Shouldn't it be a universal law of some sort that abominations weren't allowed to attack a man when he was clearing the mine shaft, so to speak?

"Don't you want to give us a kiss?" it asked from its twisted mouth.

Oh Void, a desire abomination?

_"Hawke!"_

The mage rounded the boulder Varric had gone behind for a bit of privacy while he answered his call of nature and gawped at the scene.

"Andraste's tits, kill it!" Varric shouted. "Kill it with fire!"

Hawke raised his staff and obliged.


	4. Anders' Dubious Fashion Choices

"Phblpt!" Hakwe snorted, nearly sneezed, and pulled away from one of Anders' patented hungry kisses to slap his feathered pauldron. "You don't love me, do you?"

Anders looked stricken. "Of course I love you. I would kill for you, die for you, change the world for you!"

Hawke rubbed her streaming eyes and finally sneezed. "Anders, if you loved me, you would ditch those Maker-forsaken feathers."

Anders absently petted his shoulder and shook his head. "But why? You know I could do something for the sneezing if you'd just let me."

Hawke bared her teeth in exasperation and plucked a feather from his shoulder. "I can do something for it if you'd just let me. Orlesian silk, Antivan leather, even Fereldan burlap, but noooo, you and your-" She sneezed again. "-feathers."


	5. Poison and Wine

Varric studied the Crow over the rim of a wine glass. They had done their little dance, swapping glasses, offering diversions, exchanging barbed banter, and now it was down to this – two men, two glasses; two men drink, one man leaves.

He picked up the wine glass and raised it in a toast before draining it in one long swallow. In the back of his head, he could hear Isabela offering a quip about how well he swallowed. He missed the Rivaini; without her, he had to make his own ribald comments.

The Antivan assassin leered and picked up his own glass, proving that the Crows knew a little something about swallowing too. More than a little something if some of Isabela's tales were to be believed.

He wiped the wine off his mouth and leaned across the table at Varric. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is: 'Never get involved in a land war in Orlais.' But, only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against an Antivan when death is on the line!"

Varric cut his eyes to the right and Maraas took a step forward to pass Varric a potion vial.

"You fell victim to the classic blunder," Varric corrected as he flicked the cork off the vial. "Never get involved in a battle of wits and poison with a dwarf who has more wits, a stronger stomach…" he tossed back the contents of the vial and made a face, "… and the antidote."

He watched the surprise spread across the man's face just before he fell sideways off his stool.

The Qunari mercenary caught the coin Varric tossed him and picked up the body for proper disposal. Knowing Kirkwall, Varric thought he'd probably see the dead man shambling around again, but that was trouble for another night.


	6. And I, Love, Am a Pathological Liar

"Hawke took control, spinning Fenris until his back was against the wall, her body pinning him there…"

 _She kissed me and I could taste ale and Antivan spices from the meal we'd shared…  
_  
"He left her, saying it was too painful. She told me later that she understood his pain, but didn't want to push him…"

 _She held me after we found Bartrand, comforting me, murmuring reassurances, promising we would find him help…  
_  
"At the end, he declared his undying love and made her swear not to die…"

 _We joked a little, but we both expected we were going to die. Shit happens right?  
_  
"In the end, everyone left her. Except for Fenris…"

 _She's waiting for me, and I won't leave her disappointed._


	7. Red

"What is this?" Fenris eyed the strip of red cloth warily, as though it might spring to life and strangle him. One time too many around crazy blood mages? Probably.

"It's a token, just wear it." Hawke was rather proud of not sounding exasperated.

"Why would I wear it?" Hawke might not sound exasperated, but Fenris could almost sniff it from the air as though he were truly the wolf he was named for.

"To remember me, to remember us," Hawke replied, tying the favor around Fenris' bicep. "Even if you 'just can't.'"

Hawke might be used, but never forgotten.


	8. Varric's Print Shop

"Of all my ventures, this is the one I'm most proud of" Varric explained as he walked Hawke through the print shop.

Dwarves were hard at work carving the blocks for something and Hawke was drawn by her curiosity to peer at the backwards illustration.

"Varric!" she shouted, turning in time to see the dwarf sidling toward the door. He froze under her glare.

"Varric Tethras, is that a woodcut of me in a threesome with Isabela and Merrill on top of the Arishok's body? That's…"

"Titillating?" Varric suggested. "Exciting? Risque?"

"Disgusting," she said with a glare for her friend.


	9. Caught in the Act

"Shh, not there, there."

"But what if it doesn't fit there?"

"Then Kitten, you aren't wiggling it properly."

There was a long hush punctuated by giggles and a few piratically creative curses.

"Ah, there, that's it! Ah! Ohhhh…!"

 _"Isabela!"_

Isabela and Merrill turned, both guiltily hiding their hands behind their backs.

Hawke put a hand on their shoulders and pushed to separate them like curtains.

"Merrill, I'm surprised at you." Hawke turned a sharp look on Isabela. "You I'm not surprised at at all."

They had managed to pick the lock on Hawke's desk and spread out the private etchings of Fenris.

Merrill blushed scarlet while Isabela leered and remarked, "I always wondered just how far those tattoos went."


	10. Guys, Guys, You've Got to Come See This!

"Is that…?" Aveline's brows knit into a disgusted scowl.

"I think it is," Hawke said eagerly. "I mean, look! When I mentioned it, I never really thought I'd see it. Quick! Grab Varric, he has to see this, even he couldn't come up with this."

Merrill peeked around the corner into the mausoleum and squeaked before pulling her head back and turning big eyes up at Hawke. "How do they even move like that?"

Aveline dragged Varric back and just pointed to the door where Hawke and Merrill were lurking.

He stuck his head around the corner and pulled back with a whistle. "Andraste's dimpled butt cheeks, am I really seeing boneless women flopping around an evil relic? Really? Even I couldn't write this shit."


	11. It's Only Fun If It's Illegal

The DuPuis household was safely asleep, dreaming Orlesian dreams of Orlesian luxuries abandoned in their exile to the Free Marches. The butler was, as always, asleep on his feet, thus no one heard the throaty chuckle and drunken snigger of a pirate lass leading her beau into the family treasure room.

"Step lightly, unless you want a blade up your arse," Isabela whispered to Fenris as she pushed the door closed. "There's a trap trigger right over there."

Fenris managed a whispered growl. "Why are we here? It's just like my mansion."

Isabela danced over to him and draped her arms over his shoulders. "Because, lover, after a while, it's only fun if it's illegal."


	12. In This Moment

There's a twist in his soul, a voiceless denial of distraction that somehow comes with a voice - Justice. Justice cannot understand that a man is more than a cause. Justice has always been nothing but the cause.

Hawke will never understand the effort it takes to love with Justice pounding the drums of war to drown the pounding of his heart. Hawke will never understand the price Justice exacted for his moments of happiness.

He – Justice or Anders or both, and it has always been both – lets the drums beat louder until they burst from the Chantry.

Price paid.


	13. Why Does No One Listen?

_What's the worst that could happen?_

If Varric weren't such a gentleman, he'd have slapped Hawke when she dropped that line. She knew that saying something like that was just begging the Maker to throw a big old smiting down on the speaker, but did she listen?

Halfway through Meredith kicking their asses halfway to the Black City, Varric looked over to Hawke as she threw her arms up to cast a spell that made the air crackle with power. He called out, "Hey Hawke, is this the worst yet?"

"NO!"

Why did the woman always have to be right?


	14. Resurrection

Long after the battle ended in the Gallows, Fenris returned to the scene of Meredith and Orsino's confrontation – the one that had ended in a beam of light that lit Kirkwall's sky like a beacon from the cruelest part of the Fade.

He had taken a seat on the stairs and pulled out a rag to buff the blood off his sword's blade and hilt, for all the world as though the first battle in a war that would convulse the continent had not just been fought with him as a key player.

He hummed something under his breath, wiping the sword until it gleamed before taking out a whetstone and oil to freshen up the edge on his blade. He was still blood-spattered, his white hair matted with blood that had gone to maroon as it dried, the red favor on his wrist almost blackened with the blood of demons and abominations, mages and templars.

He finished sharpening his blade and simply set it across his knees, waiting.

The evening moved on, scented by smoke, blood, and raw magic, the wind carrying occasional sounds of people struggling to restore any sense or order to a world that had exploded in chaos.

Still Fenris waited.

Fog rolled in for an hour after full dark, muffling the sound as though the city and Gallows had been swaddled in cotton. Fires burned on, men and women still screamed or cried or shouted to one another, but it was all veiled in the mercy of fog.

The fog rescinded its grace after the air grew cool enough not to draw it off the water and the stars peeked down at Fenris through the last billows of smoke.

He remained unmoving, waiting for something only he anticipated.

The moon rose, limning the island in silver where it was not lit by fire, turning the lyrium traceries on the elf's skin into echoes of its touch, like moonsilver running in rivulets along cuts in his muscles.

Finally he rose to his feet, his sword held lightly in his hands and watched a shadow move on the ground nearby. It rose to its feet unsteadily, drawn like a marionette on its strings, a head turning to survey its surroundings before fixing its gaze on Fenris, eyes already lighting with a blue fire.

"Hawke sent me," Fenris told Justice and swept forward in a blaze of lyrium and steel.


	15. Scary Stories You Tell in the Dark

Marian and Bethany huddled together under their blanket tent, giggling together as two sisters with a spectacularly surly brother are wont to do.

"Father says that the templars are twenty feet tall," Bethany confided.

"Nuh uh," Marian scoffed. "I've seen them outside the chantry. They look like regular people. But grouchier."

Bethany gasped in the darkness. "Weren't you scared?"

"Nope," Marian lied.

"I'd be scared," Bethany admitted. "I don't want to be made Tranquil."

"You don't even know what Tranquil means," Marian said and poked her in the ribs.

"I do too," Bethany poked her sister back. "It means they make you a ghost and you don't love anyone or anything. Not even pudding!"

They were both silent, considering the horror of not loving dessert.


	16. I'd Rather Forget

Marian leaned on the ship's railing and watched Kirkwall fall into the distance behind her.

She could see the smoke still rising from the ruins of the Chantry and from the fighting in the streets and the Gallows.

She had fought so hard to make a home and now she was on the road again, fleeing Kirkwall and all the nightmares it had brought her. What had she really won in Kirkwall? A home? In flames. Safety for her family? All lost. Freedom for herself? Tenuous at best. Love?

Her hand trembled with the memory of what love had brought her. A dagger thrust.

Isabela came to lean next to her, putting a hand over hers to still its tremble.

Marian stretched her lips in an approximation of a smile. "Do you ever think that it would be better to be able to take a potion and forget everything?" she asked, looking down at the water swirling out in the ship's wake.

Isabela squeezed her hand. "Do you think that helped Fenris?"

"No, but…."

"But you're different, right?"

Hawke nodded. "It's…."

"Worse?"

She nodded again.

Isabela kissed her cheek and stood up. "No. Because then I'd have to forget you."


	17. Uncharted

Isabela can navigate her way from the Waking Sea to the Colean Sea with her eyes closed. She can brazen her way through the strait between Rivain and Llomerynn without breaking a sweat. She can make port in Antiva City and only pay the actual port charges and not the ones extorted by ambitious entrepreneurs.

She watched Hawke toss back another glass of the Hanged Man's swill and lean in to tell Varric a joke that made the dwarf nearly tip his chair over backwards when he guffawed.

She could navigate the world, but love? Love was uncharted territory.


	18. Can we fix it? No, it's fucked

They stood around the pile of tinder that had once been a chest. Hawke still held his sword in his hand glowering down on the flinders with an expression that said, _And stay dead!_

"I told you we didn't need Isabela," he told Fenris, Anders, and Aveline. With an unspoken subtitling of, _Run off with the book and leave me to face the Arishok alone? To the Void with you and your bosom!_

Anders knelt and sifted through the remains, finally holding up two twisted pieces of metal that had probably been the key to the lost temple's inner sanctum that they were looking for.

Hawke looked at it. "Can we fix it?"

Anders raised an eyebrow.

"Fine," the warrior huffed. "We'll go back and get Varric."

So much for their first post-Arishok outing without their best picklock.


	19. The Scars of Your Love

Isabela helped her peel her armor away. For once the pirate was quiet, careful, her dexterity exactly what was needed to pull the dented metal out of wounded flesh. Meredith's sword blows had driven the armor into Hawke's skin, leaving it to scrape and tear with her every movement.

The wages of war, the rogue thought to herself, though that didn't keep her from hissing when Isabela pulled a splinter of metal out of her shoulder.

"I'll stitch those for you," Isabela offered, looking at the wounds that healing potions had mostly closed, but not quite erased.

There were other marks, other wounds. Old scars, new scars. Reminders that being Champion did not come without a price paid in blood. She traced the eight red scoremarks that ran down Hawke's back. They wouldn't need tending, the healing potions had closed whatever wounds there had been.

"These won't even scar," she assured Hawke.

Hawke twisted to look over her shoulder and drew in a breath when she saw the marks Isabela indicated. Her legs seemed to crumple under her, sending her falling back onto her bed with a sob.

"What?" Isabela was at her side in an instant, wrapping her in the protection of her arms.

Hawke turned her face away, looking at the bed where she and Anders had spent so many nights. Isabela followed her gaze to the rumpled sheets and hissed softly through her teeth.

Eight lines of dried blood marked the sheets and Isabela cursed herself for not seeing the marks for what they were; she'd left enough of them on men and women's and backs over the years.

Hawke scrubbed her tears away with the heel of her hand and gently pushed Isabela away.

"I wish they would. I wish they _would_ scar."


	20. Absolution

Gluttony.

Food is food, delicious, but not to the point of sin.

Sloth.

Once perhaps, but no longer. He would rather be a man of action.

Greed.

For experience, perhaps, but not for worldly goods. Another he can mark off.

Rage.

For his parents, for his country, for all he lost and can never regain? Yes, there is rage.

Pride.

A prince without pride? If one existed, it was not he.

Envy.

He does not want to admit to envy, but when he sees her with her head close to the elf's, a smile curving her lips… yes, he will confess it.

Lust.

Every waking moment, following her, watching the sway of her hips, smelling her sweat, hearing her voice, burning with the tantalizing touch of her hand when she bandages his wounds.

There are sins he can confess, but can he be absolved when the sin never ends?


	21. Eggs

"I just realized," Anders grunted and swept the bladed end of his staff up into a spider's mandibles, knocking it back before it could finish its goal of eating his face, "that I hate every single thing that lays eggs."

Isabela laughed as she pulled her daggers out of another's abdomen, sending… was that green? ichor spraying. "What? These aren't better than kittens?"

"No," he snapped, bringing up a hand to freeze the blasted thing when it made another try. What was it about his face? He'd checked the mirror, it wasn't that pretty.

Varric brought up Bianca to rain a shower of arrows down on the fray before adding his two coppers. "He might have a point. Dragons."

Anders bared his teeth in a humorless grin. "Why do they have to lay so bloody many eggs? Every time we try to get up Sundermount, there are always more of those dragonlings."

"Chickens," Hawke shouted, battering a spider with his shield before ramming his sword through the top of its… well, head would have to do. "You can't hate chickens."

"You have obviously never met a chicken," Anders yelled back. "Filthy, bad-tempered, creatures prone to pecking and shitting on poor lads who just want to pet the fluffy things."

Varric and Hawke shared a look.

"Childhood trauma," Varric observed.

"Explains a lot," Hawke agreed. "Now watch your back!"

Right. Back to the spiders.


	22. Sandal at night

The guardsmen eyed the pile of bodies on the stairs leading out of Lowtown down into Darktown.

"Taking bets," Willum said dryly.

"Hawke for ten," said Corin, shaking a handful of coppers before putting them in Willum's hand to hold.

"Hawke," James agreed, adding ten of his own.

"Carta." Lorne added coins to the pot.

Lyrine cleared her throat and dropped a handful of coppers. "Sandal."

"Who?" The other guards turned to frown at her.

"Sandal," she repeated, folding her arms across her chest. "You'll be handing those coppers over to me, count on it."

"What makes you say that?" Willum asked.

Lyrine pushed one of the bodies with a toe, sending the petrified corpse rolling down the steps until it shattered into pieces at the bottom. "Enchantment."


	23. Kill them all

Ah, his little wolf, not a cub any longer, but grown to his full potential.

But still not an alpha male, Danarius observes, seeing the way Fenris still defers to another. He sees the way his little runaway walks a step behind and to the right, guarding the mage's back the way once Fenris guarded his back.

He wonders, idly, if Fenris would turn on the Champion in time, disloyal creature that he is.

He wonders, less idly, if this Champion makes Fenris' tattoos _burn_ under his hand the way Danarius used to.

It is that not-so-idle thought that seals his decision.

"Kill them," he instructs his guards when the time comes. "Kill them all."


	24. Butterflies

The butterfly fluttered across the open field, drifting from flower to flower, sometimes alighting, sometimes barely grazing the petals before moving on, blown by whim or wind, but it carried its now with it wherever it landed.

Malcolm let the butterfly hold his attention only until it came between him and another form that drifted across the sunlit field, arms shifting through the forms of strike and parry, leap and evade.

She almost seemed to float, the two training daggers he had carved for her held in her hands as she fought invisible templars for her sister, for her father. The tall grass barely stirred in her passage, blown by whim or wind, but, Malcolm thought, his daughter always carried her now with her wherever she landed.


	25. Oh, it's big

The campfire had burned down to embers, the chatter and banter among the four friends had died down to occasional whispers, _Do you have my blanket?_ or _Maker, these stitches itch._ and _Dammit, Isabela, I already said no!_

Garrett lay on his back with his head pillowed on his hands. "Do you ever wonder if this is all worth it?"

It was one of those things that crosses a person's mind on the threshhold into the Fade, and he hadn't meant to say it aloud, but once spoken, it was too late to take it back.

The night seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the answer.

"Yes." This from the unlikeliest of sources, considering the mage's zeal for his cause, but it was Anders who answered first. "But what are the alternatives?"

"Running away," Isabela said. "Running away is always an option."

"Like you did, leaving Hawke to clean up your mess?" Anders retorted, sitting up in his bedroll. "That's not an option."

"Whoa, hold on there," Garrett interrupted. "Lie back down, magey. It's too late for fighting."

Anders subsided and lay down again, but not without a hot glower in the pirate's direction.

"What about you, Hawke," Aveline asked to quell the argument between Anders and Isabela. "Since you brought it up."

"You first," Garret said. "Does the human battering ram ever wonder if this is worth it? All the fighting and the blood." All the loss?

Aveline didn't hesitate for a moment. "No. I can't." What went unsaid was that she had to have her certainties or she would surely flounder.

"Your turn now, Hawke." Isabela said. "What about your doubt?"

Garrett's mind swam with memories of his mother's face, Anders' admission that no there was no potion that would free him of Justice, his sister looking at him through a barred Gallows window, the deaths, the losses, the endless procession of people he had slain despite the fact that they had mothers and sisters and brothers of their own.

He sighed and closed his eyes. "My doubt?

"Oh, it's big."


	26. Vengeance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was "Vengeance." I wrote one. Then I wrote another. Then I spent most of that Tuesday writing one for each character.

**Isabela**  
"Ah, my dear Isabela, the job is done."

Isabela brushes her hair out of her eyes and favors him with a burning smile. If there is one thing her husband – late husband – has taught her, it is that her womanly charms have worth in men's eyes. Admittedly, he had done it through raging jealousy and his fists, but the lessons have stuck.

She stalks toward Zevran, already stripping off her belt and her thin shift, dropping most of her knives as she goes, ready to offer him the first part of his payment for a job well done.

She doesn't care what the enlightened says, vengeance is sweet, and freedom still sweeter.

 **Aveline**  
When she was a little girl, her father taught her the things he thought a little chevalier should know – pride, duty, endurance.

He tried to teach her never to let a slight pass unanswered, but she heard another voice in her heart that she always hoped was her mother's. Her mother's voice counseled that not all strength came from the fist.

In Kirkwall she tries to hear her mother's voice as often as her father's and her guards – her _family_ – prosper for it.

There are Orlesians who say that living well is the best revenge. Aveline believes that living _good_ is better.

 **Carver**  
Some nights he dreams that he died instead of his sister. That in some other world, some other life, the balance of existence dictates that Bethany lives and Carver dies.

Most nights he dreams of darkspawn and wakes with a scream caught in his throat. It's the price of being a Gray Warden, and he pays it willingly.

He pays it because every time he ventures into the Deep Roads with his fellow wardens, every time his sword cleaves through twisted flesh and bone, he is paying them back for everything he lost, everyone he lost. He does it for Bethany.

 **Varric**  
For long years he has engaged his imagination in fantasies of revenge for his brother's betrayal. The fantasies grow more elaborate time, lovingly embellished with screams and pleas for mercy, gilded with admissions of guilt and heartfelt apologies.

Late at night when the Hanged Man is silent save for the surprised shout of a drunkard waking from his stupor with his face in a puddle of… something, he tells Bianca bedtime tales of heroic fratricide.

Seeing Bartrand weeping, lost to the curse of the very idol he had tried to kill his brother for, Varric loses his taste for vengeance.

 **Fenris**  
With Hadriana dead at his feet, he had thought that all he would need to be a free man was Danarius' death, that it would stop the burning that is his first memory.

With Danarius crushed and broken, his rage turns on his sister, the flames licking higher in desperation to keep from being extinguished. What would he be without the fire?

With her heart in his hands, he begins to understand how men open themselves to demons, and why those of rage are things of molten hatred.

Vengeance has not cooled the blaze, only brought him to the brink of self-immolation.

 **Merrill**  
She thinks, sometimes, that other clans will hear of her and what has happened. When she sees a face marked by vallaslin in the alienage her heart always stutters a little and she wonders if she will be brave enough to take the justice that by rights, other Dalish could mete out.

In her wretched little home, she stands in front of the eluvian, seeing exactly the reflection of her soul she would expect – nothing – and one night her broken heart hardens.

She returns to her studies and her goal of repairing the cursed thing, no longer to retrieve lost knowledge, but to find the evil through the looking glass, and have _vengeance._

Then she will face the other clans and allow them their _justice._

 **Justice**  
Justice does his best to find justice for Kristoff's wife, Aura. He finds the memories of the man's love compelling, even envies them. He does his best, and in the nights while his companions sleep, he turns the man's memories over and over like treasures to rival the lyrium ring his friend had given him.

Love, he finds, is a treasure beyond compare, and one he knows he could never experience for himself.

When does he know that he has lost himself? When does he find himself twisted out of true?

When he whispers jealously, _No, Hawke is a distraction._

What need has Vengeance of love when they have retribution?

 **Sebastian**  
His cry cuts through Hawke's misguided attempt at granting mercy to a murderer.

The man brought him justice for the murders of his family, he is certain he can make him see reason, even with his lover.

Elthina is his family. _Was_ his family.

He makes his case, makes his threat, and hates himself for it, and sees Hawke hate him for it as well, but the choice is made.

When the knife finds its home, for just a moment he feels a pang, and hears the distant echo of a demon's laugh.

Has he seen justice? Or just vengeance?

 **Hawke and Anders**  
Vengeance.

She turns the word over and over in her mind until it loses all meaning, becoming only ugly syllables, not a name, not a concept, not an act perpetrated when justice forgot compassion.

She smiles and nods when spoken to, takes food and drink when her friends press them upon her, even sleeps when she grows tired, but always her thoughts turn inward.

She knows the lure of vengeance, ugly though it is. She knows the rage and the anger and the… the helplessness against horror that push for action despite consequences.

But when she looks over at Anders, slumped against the center mast of the ship, forced to live to make some reparation despite his wish to die, she thinks that justice could be far crueler in the long run.


	27. Wade and Herren's Fabulous Adventure

_"Herren!"_

Herren winced at Wade's shriek of fury, he must have seen the shipment of leather that had just come in. He had known he shouldn't have accepted it, but it would be tolerable quality for equipping new recruits at least.

"Herren," Wade stalked in holding a piece of leather in his fist, his face already red with fury. "Have you _seen_ this travesty? Have you seen it?"

"Yes, Wade, I've seen it," Herren said with a long-suffering sigh.

"Then how, how, _how could you?"_

Herren rubbed his temples before deciding that yes, today would be a good day to bring out his secret weapon.

He reached under the counter and drew out a small stack of drake's scales and watched the rage melt off Wade's face between one breath and the next.

"Oh _Herren,"_ he breathed, all thoughts of substandard leather forgotten. "You are too good to me."

Herren waited until Wade's back was turned to smile fondly at the man.

"I know."


	28. Just One More

Isabela hunched at Varric's great table, lips stained with ink from her habit of licking her quill between sentences.

"Rivaini," Varric said wearily. "It's late."

"I know, I know," she muttered distractedly. "Just a little more. I've almost got Hawke to the point where she throws Fenris in the bed on top of Anders and makes them both—"

 _"Isabela!"_

She looked up from the page and stuck out her tongue. "Don't give me that, Varric. You know how it is when you're on a roll. Just one more chapter. I promise."

Varric groaned and fell back on his bed. Void take Isabela and her friend fiction.


	29. Fine Antivan Leather

"Ugh, Maker what is that smell?" Marian choked out, nose wrinkled against the stink.

Zevran quirked an eyebrow at her and grinned, drawing off his gloves one slow fingertip at a time while Isabela lounged back on the bed and chuckled.

"You just had to get him going, didn't you?"

"That was rather the idea, wasn't it?" Marian joked back, a hand on her friend's thigh, though her face was still scrunched up against the smell.

"That, my dear Champion," Zevran purred, tossing the glove in her lap, "is the fragrant aroma of my childhood, only the finest Antivan leather."


	30. Once I Had a Dream

_Once I had a dream…_

She finds it written on a scrap of paper in his mansion, amid the wreckage and clutter that he never bothered to clear, and she has never touched out of respect for his choices as a free man (though her hands _itch_ for a broom almost every time she visits.)

She turns the words over in her mind, worrying at them, teasing them, thinking of what he told her on their single night together, _I began to remember…_

She holds the scrap with its fragment of his careful handwriting, and wonders if he has also begun to dream.


	31. Ribbons

She wears ribbons in her hair so Daddy will smile.

He always looks so sad when Mommy is away, but when she wears the red ribbons he always picks her up and swings her around, calling her his little eyass.

For a long time, she thought Eyass was her name, but Daddy taught her that it is the name for a baby hawk, just as she is a baby Hawke in her own right.

She wears the ribbons in her hair and Daddy swings her up toward the sky to fly like a little eyass, but he smiles even more when she asks him what he calls a baby wolf.


	32. Goats

"You probably don't have to do this, you know," Marian said, dubiously eying the goat. The goat eyed her back with her vertically-slit pupils, chewing on Maker-knew-what with a kind of infinite caprine patience.

Aveline shook her head. "I'm a traditional sort of woman, Hawke. I started this relationship. _I_ proposed. And I make more money than he does."

"But it's so…" she trailed off under Aveline's scowl.

"So what?" the guardwoman asked, hefting the wheat she had under her arm and tugging the goat's lead. "It's so _what,_ Hawke?"

"So sweet," Marian said lamely, and followed Aveline up the stairs to the Hendyr family home.


	33. Your Best Wasn't Good Enough

_I did my best._

Did you?

 _I helped my family escape Lothering._

Bethany died.

 _I helped buy my mother's way into Kirkwall._

How many people did you kill for the Red Irons?

 _I helped Fenris free himself._

He killed his own sister.

 _I helped Varric find Bartrand and he didn't kill him._

A broken husk. Couldn't you have done better in the Deep Roads?

 _I tried to be a good sister._

He rejected you to become a templar. His sister the mage.

 _I stopped the Qunari rampage in Kirkwall._

Which happened because you trusted a thief.

 _Mother…_

You failed her.

 _Anders…_

A murderer you lay beside every night.

 _Merrill, I helped Merrill._

An entire clan of Dalish, lost to history and to their race.

 _I helped the mages._

The ones led by Orsino? Orsino who knew your mother's murderer and hid his acts?

 _I stopped Meredith._

She was a good woman before you failed everyone in the Deep Roads. Her fall is your fault. It's all your fault.

 _What would you have done differently?_

I would have taken the power when it was offered to me. The power I can offer you now.

 _Thanks, but I'll just do better on my own. I think I'll wake up now. You should run._


	34. Will o'wisp

Deep in the marshes of the Korcari wilds, will o'wisps are said to lead unwary travelers to their deaths with promises of lantern light and safety on dark nights.

He stands behind Anders, wanting to card his fingers through his lover's hair one last time, but holding himself back for fear he will lose all resolve and finally let loose the tears he has been hoarding for years, since even before Ostagar, since his father's senseless death.

He holds the knife, and Anders' lies have already led him away from the beaten path into a mire he can never escape.


	35. Awkward

"Barkspawn, no!" Marian wanted to sink into the floor.

"Gaspode, down!" Daniella snapped.

Both mabari ignored their masters, going about making each other's acquaintance in a rather... unexpected manner.

Finally Marian grabbed Daniella by the arm and pulled her out of the garden and into the mansion. "I'm so sorry," she stammered to her cousin, the Hero of Ferelden. "I didn't know he swung that way."

Daniella laughed and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I didn't know Gaspode did either."


	36. You have been weighed

The Arishok challenged Hawke to a duel. Over her.

"Wait one minute." Isabela stepped up. Who was the duelist here after all? Her? Or the spindly mage?

And no she was not going to think about the fact that Hawke was anything but spindly because she really wanted to do things to him that would make him forget all about the little thing he had going with Merrill, no matter how sweet the girl was.

Wait. Where was she? Right. Priorities.

"If you're going to duel anyone," she challenged, "duel me."

The Arishok merely shook his ponderous head. "You are not basilit-an."

And what the buggery was that anyway?

He dismissed her, simple as that, and he saw in his eyes something that made her burn with humiliation: _You have been weighed. You have been measured. And you have been found wanting._


	37. One O'Clock and All's Well

"I think we're going to get home without getting jumped."

Varric groaned. "Why did you have to say that, Chantry Boy? Do you know what happens when people say that?"

Merrill pitched her voice down for her imitation of Varric, "No shit, there I was, and two dozen slavers just fell from the sky."

Hawke snorted a laugh through her nose, trying to stay quiet, because she really would prefer they made it to the Hanged Man without yet another kill or be killed situation.

"I was just saying," Sebastian insisted, "that it's a quiet night and no one seems—"

He was interrupted by the quiet thumps of dozens of feet in soft footpad's boots hitting the ground.

"What did I tell you?" Varric said, pulling Bianca off his shoulder. "Never say that."

In the distance, they heard the melancholy – and utterly incorrect – call of a guardsman: "One o'clock, and all's well!"


	38. Words on a Page

Fenris knows what the shapes are. He understands the concept that one draws shapes that represents sounds and the sounds taken together will have meaning. Each squiggle on this page is a sound, captured, ready to be released by the passing eye of one trained in its secrets.

He turns that thought over in his head – the words are imprisoned, but they can be freed, yet even when they are freed, they remain imprisoned. Somehow, he thinks there is a secret about himself in there, if only he can unravel it.

He is imprisoned, but when she looks at him, knowing his secrets, she releases him.

But still he remains trapped, like a word on a page.


	39. The Scream

The scream is trapped behind his smile. He keeps it locked there when Macha throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He bites his lips until they bleed while Hawke and Cullen discuss what will be done with him, but the scream stays where it belongs.

He swallows it, letting it swell his throat until his throat burns with the effort of keeping it in. He feels it settle lower, behind his sternum like something possessing him.

And it is that thought that breaks his smile.

He excuses himself almost at a run, he clatters down the stairs in the Gallows, crashing through doors, going deeper, deeper, until he reaches the entrance to the tunnels that no one is supposed to know about. Where no one is supposed to know the smugglers bring more lyrium for addicted men and women than the Chantry would allow.

Where no one but a few dwarves will hear him when the scream finally erupts from his throat like lava thrown from a volcano, torrents of sound scalding away the fear and anger and pain that he had hidden because he had responsibilities, he had a family, he could – not – break.

The scream burns away some of what he has hidden, but the memories will be with him always. Keran realizes then that it will never end, he will fight the demons of memory for the rest of his life.


	40. It's more of an involuntary vow of poverty

"When was the last time you had new clothes?"

Anders looked down at what he was wearing, brushed a bit of dust off of his pauldrons, and tried not to think about the real answer to Isabela's question. "You don't like the apostate-on-the-run look? I think it's quite dashing."

Isabela stood, hands on hips, booted foot tapping impatiently on the floor, and shook her head. "You used to take care of yourself, Anders." She reached out and flicked his bare earlobe. "Did you sell all your good clothes, your earring, even your old staff?"

"Well, yes," he said, suddenly feeling defensive. He pointedly eyed her extravagant jewelry. "I thought I had better use for the money than clothes and jewelry."

"So what? You took a vow of poverty? Gave everything to the poor? In case you haven't noticed, most of the poor have more than you do now."

Anders surveyed his small domain, the clinic with its meager beds and dirt and mold that collected on the walls and in the corners despite his best efforts to keep the place clean. "I suppose you could say it was a vow of poverty." An unexpected side-effect of Justice was more like it. "An involuntary one."

She tossed a small bag his way before she turned to leave. He caught it and heard coins clink.

"For the healing." She put an extra sway in her step just for him, he knew it. "And for keeping your mouth shut about what you healed," she added.


	41. If You Don't Go to the Parties

To be honest, he had never thought this day would come.

He had thought to die on a templar sword, with Sebastian's arrow through his heart, or even with Hawke's blade in his back.

He had not thought to live so long that his Calling would be upon him. He had thought that he could leave everything behind save the nightmares.

And the stamina, but he got to use that so infrequently it didn't bear dwelling upon.

Yet there he was, staring at the black hole in the side of a mountain with nothing but the staff on his back and the spells in his soul.

So, this answered his question – if you don't go to the parties, are you still a Gray Warden?

The answer was that the Gray Wardens always had one last big, bloody, scary as fuck going away party waiting.


	42. A Different Kind of Magic

On the long trip to Amaranthine she had wondered if it would be worth it. Ferelden was safer than the Free Marches, but not by much. Not when traveling with the most wanted man in Thedas, but still she had dragged him onto the ship and nursed him through the voyage.

It had been hard, getting him to eat, getting him to even acknowledge her. The fire in his eyes seemed to have burned itself out along with the embers of Kirkwall's chantry, but still she cared for Anders, keeping him alive, talking to him, telling him stories that had nothing to do with mages and templars, blood or war.

She held out hope that he would learn to live again, and that she would learn to trust him again.

Now she draws the hood up over his head when they disembark in Amaranthine. He lets her lead him out into the city that is still rebuilding after the darkspawn siege of years before.

She has a name, one he mentioned once in passing and likely never imagined she would remember. She leaves him to wait while she asks directions of guardsmen, keeping her voice down so he does not hear, and when she has her directions, she takes his arm again and draws him deeper into the city until she can knock on a door, wait for an answer.

The woman who answers the door is suspicious until she sees his face, then her expression warms and she lets Hawke bring Anders inside, settle him in a chair, and wait…

Hawke watches him closely when Delilah Howe returns with a tabby cat in her arms, and she nearly weeps to see Anders' expression flicker into life, his eyes growing wide and shiny when the cat leaps from Delilah's arms into his lap.

When he smiles, Hawke does cry.

It's magic. Just a different kind.


	43. There is a Hole in Your Soul

Orsino knew her stories. Once, years before, Meredith had told him about her sister, and how she had become an abomination, slaying more than seventy people before she was stopped.

He respected Meredith, he held her in esteem, but he could not help but hate her.

She loathed everything he was. How could he make her see that he was just a man, like any other. A man who could make choices. Were choices not the Maker's gift and curse to his creation?

He might have loved her for her strength, once upon a time.

But that was long before the hole opened in her soul and she filled it only with rage.


	44. Not This Again

"Is that… a varterral? Another one?" Hawke was understandably incredulous. "I'm sure I killed it."

Merrill tried to explain, but he didn't seem to hear her, given his complaints that continued even as he scythed his sword into the creature's legs, even while he was spitting caustic spittle out of his mouth, he still gave vent to his outrage.

"I know I killed this!

"It's not allowed to come back once I've killed it!

"Void take it, just die already!"

Given his outrage, Merrill decided to wait until later to mention that it would be back if they ever returned.


	45. Varric, Isabela - winter

"Rivaini, you're doing it again."

"Doing what again?" Isabela asked, her voice dripping faux innocence.

"You're objectifying me again," Varric said with an admirable straight face. No wonder he was the diamondback champion of their small circle of friends.

"No I'm not!" Isabela protested.

"Yes you are," he countered smugly. "I can see you looking at my chest hair."

"I'm not!" And this time her protest was hoenst. "How can I? It's winter and it's all covered up."

Varric gave her an expansive shrug. "I can tell when a woman is undressing me with her eyes. You're doing such a good job of it, I can't decide whether to get hot or catch a chill."

"Get hot," Isabela said, nodding. "Definitely get hot."


	46. I Told You Not to Touch That!

The ceiling was coming down – not falling down, sliding on tracks. Oh yes, and there were spikes. Spikes!

He was going to become an impaled Hawke pancake – or one of those Orlesian things, an impaled Hawke crepe. He shot a hot glare at Merrill, who stood by the wall, looking guilty.

"I thought I told you not to touch anything!"

She shook her head. "I didn't!"

Like Flame she didn't, but he didn't have time to argue that with the ceiling coming down on them. He pressed his face to the small opening out to the corridor and shouted for Isabela.


	47. Sleeping with the Fishies

Varric was a city dwarf and he liked it that way, but even he had to admit that this little forest clearing was idyllic. If Hawke would only drag them to peaceful places like this a little more often…

…then he would have much less fodder for his stories, but also probably fewer scars. He supposed he would take the scars as fair trade for the tales.

He rubbed a small block of wax over Bianca's stock while he watched over his friends. It was midday, but they were all exhausted after finally fighting their way out of that cave Isabela had promised would be filled to the ceiling with treasure.

Spiders was more like it.

She lay sprawled on a blanket, her kerchief pulled down to shade her eyes looking completely carefree in her doze. Only Varric noticed the knife hidden in the grass under her hand.

Hawke had dipped a rag in the pond at the edge of the clearing and draped it over her forehead before she fell asleep using Isabela's thigh as a pillow.

Briefly Varric wished he was as accomplished an artist as he was a storyteller. If he could sell the image of the two women asleep like that, he would be rich beyond even the golden dreams of dwarves.

And Daisy… his eyes swept the clearing and found her lying on her stomach by the pond. She had squealed with delight when they had found the pond and seen the tiny minnows darting under its surface.

He set Bianca aside to stroll over to squat at Merrill's side. "Did you find anything good in there?"

Her fingertips trailed in the water, the minnows curiously nibbling and bumping at the intrusions into their little world.

"Daisy?"

Bending down, he saw that her eyes were closed, her face slack in sleep.

He chuckled softly to himself and lifted her hand out of the water to settle it on the grass.

"Only you, Daisy, would find a way to sleep with the fishes that was actually adorable," he murmured before going back to reassure Bianca that he was not neglecting her for another woman.


	48. What's In Your Pack?

Isabela rummaged through Poppy's pack, pulling out item after item of junk.

"Poppy, sweet, what are you going to do with this?" she asked, holding up a small piece of something she was fairly sure was spider chitin.

True to her fair skin and dark auburn hair, Poppy blushed like, well, a champion. She shrugged and snatched the chitin back from Isabela. "I thought I'd show it to Solivitus."

"And this?" Isabela asked, pulling out a moldy rag doll. "Is this yours?"

"No," Poppy said hotly, grabbing the doll out of Isabela's hand. "But I were a child, I would want someone to bring me back my doll if they found it."

Isabela rolled her eyes and didn't even comment on the four pairs of torn trousers she dragged out of Poppy's pack.

She found the book of suggestive caricature and tucked that in her belt for later perusal.

Poppy cast her eyes down and shuffled her feet when Isabela pulled out the last two items.

"And what, pray tell," Isabela drawled, "use were you going to find for these?"

Poppy grabbed the stuffed parrot and peg leg away from Isabela and hid them under her coat. "It was something Merrill said about pirates. I was hoping I would find an eye patch…."

"And then?" Isabela asked, eyebrow arching.

Poppy cut a glance over to Fenris where he sat talking with Varric and blushed still brighter. "And then I was going to suggest playing a little game. At home. In the bedroom."

Isabela was sure she would stop laughing sometime around Summerday.


	49. Magic Touch

Garrett was certain he was in love with Anders – from his scruffy beard and scruffier pauldrons to that crooked smile he used only when he was saying something meant to make Garrett feel like the center of Anders' universe and fantasies.

And the things Anders did in the bedroom? The electricity thing that Isabela had hinted at was only the tip of the wonderful, beautiful, slightly perverse iceberg.

There was only one thing – other than the insignificant matters of his lover being an abomination in hiding from the Gray Wardens – that troubled him about falling into a relationship with Anders, and it had to do with the bedroom things.

Sadly, since his first night with Anders, he could not help the horrible thought that occasionally wandered through his head that his mother had also fallen in love with an apostate mage.

He cursed Anders for making him think about his parents' love life in that degree of detail.


	50. Ladykiller in Love

"He's following me again," Isabela complained.

Hawke did not give her complaint the care it was due. "He must like you. You could just talk to him about it."

"I don't care if he likes me," she snapped. "I want him to stop sniffing after me like that."

She put her hands on her hips and glared at the man who had _somehow_ managed to convince her that love wasn't necessarily the four-letter word she had always thought it was.

"I am going to get some bitch to follow you around the same way," she promised.

"Threats are not going to help your case." Hawke pointed back to his mabari. "I told you to take it up with Barkspawn."


	51. Matching Underwear

Poppy would admit that she had entertained fantasies about both Anders and Fenris – Anders, Fenris, Isabela, Merrill, Sebastian, and Varric, if she was going to be honest with herself. Aveline was exempt simply because Poppy was rather certain that Aveline would beat her over the head even in her fantasies, and she had never seen the appeal of masochism.

She told her inner monologuer to be quiet about the masochism of fighting templars, slavers, and oh yes, let's not forget high dragons. Her inner monologuer also had a tendency to get sidetracked by shiny things, which was how she managed to finally silence it in favor of staring.

Anders and Fenris had somehow taken the brunt of the Varterral's caustic spit and were stripping down to their smalls.

 _That_ was shiny enough to distract even her inner monloguer from commenting on anything except the fact that they were both wearing…

…matching smallclothes.

And sneaking peeks at each other.

And when they both thought she was busy helping to reassure Varric that Bianca had not taken a mortal injury, she was _certain_ that she saw Anders grab Fenris' backside.

Her inner monologuer was stunned to silence.

Her inner pornographic friend ficcer on the other hand, started screaming in glee.

"Varric?"

"I think her stock is scratched, and if you—"

 _"Varric!"_

"—look right there you can see where the acid—"

She grabbed Varric by the lapels of his coat. "Bianca is _fine!_ Give me a piece of parchment and a quill. _Now!"_


	52. Celery

"Do you have any celery?" Anders asked as he pillaged Hawke's larder. "No? I suppose the climate's wrong.

"Tomatoes!" he said triumphantly, standing up with two tomatoes in his hands.

"Anders," Hawke groaned, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Why are you awake?"

"Nightmares," Anders said absently while he poked around in cupboards. "Happens all the time, don't worry about it. It's perfectly normal. I wonder if it's too early to go down to the docks and get some fish."

"It's too early for everything except sleep," Hawke complained.

"You don't get to complain when you drag your friends all over the Free Marches at all hours of the day and night," Anders said before straightening from digging in the ice box with a sound of triumph. "Hah! I don't have to go to the docks after all. Orana must have gotten fish at the market."

He dug out a pan and dropped the fish into it.

"I'm going to bread and fry this, you can have a late night snack with me, and then we'll go back to bed."

Hawke ran his fingers through his hair and watched Anders bustle around the kitchen as though he had lived with him for years. "You're going to have a fish fry up and that's a snack?"

Anders turned away from crushing some dry bread, his eyes unfocused as he considered something for a moment before nodding. "You're right. Do you know how to make custard?"


	53. Will You?

Will you stand by his side and face down the fears of your childhood when they come in templar armor?

Will you stand firm and say "He is not a slave"?

Will you forgive her when she lies? When she runs? When she returns?

Will you find the money, return the amulet, take the wayward mage and be her friend?

Will you comfort a friend, love your brother, support your mother?

Will you forgive? Forget? Stand strong?

Will you live? Love? Cry?

Will you ever be your own person or will you be crushed under your own legend?


	54. Back to the Start

He remembers the first time he saw this courtyard with Mother, Bethany, and Aveline at his side. He remembers the first time his eyes tracked the statues and his errant thought that all the Gallows needed to turn this into a place of darkest despair would be for those statues to lower their hands from their faces and move.

He remembers that thought and his regret for ever thinking it is like a knife in the gut.

The statues lower their hands, climb down from their perches and rise from their crouches. Mother and Bethany are long gone, but Aveline puts her back against his and they raise their swords and shields together.

"Ever regret you followed us here?" he asks her lightly as he sees the few of his friends who have stayed by his side range themselves through the courtyard to brace themselves for the assault.

He counts the casualties – Bethany lost in the Deep Roads, Mother lost to murder, Isabela lost to her own treachery, Fenris lost to Hawke's choice to side with the mages, Sebastian lost to Hawke's choice to show Anders a cruel mercy in letting him live, but forcing him to run, Anders lost to Vengeance.

Most of his friends are gone, but he still has Aveline.

"Every day, Hawke," Aveline replies, and for a moment his heart sinks. "Now ask me if I'm ever grateful you brought me along."

"Are you ever grateful I brought you along?" he asks dutifully.

Five more steps. Four. Three. The battle will begin anew in just two more steps as the first of the statues staggers its way to them..

"Every day, Hawke," she says.

One.

It's enough.


	55. Red Rose

Alistair was a sweet man, charming and with a kind of self-deprecatory humor that made Lisbeth Amell forgive him for his past as a templar and for his occasional moments of shoving his foot in his mouth.

He was, she noted, not the sharpest blade in the arsenal. When he gave her a rose that he had carried across Ferelden and back again, schlepping it through the Deep Roads, the Brecilian Forest, and even more than one instance of dragon fire, it was as fresh as the day he had picked it in Lothering.

Alistair didn't question that miracle, and neither did Lisbeth.

He didn't question it because he was dear, but a little dense. Lisbeth didn't question it because it finally answered the question of why she occasionally caught Wynne casting spells at Alistair's backpack.


	56. Put On Your Sexy Boots

Isabela stood at the bow of the small ship she had appropriated by means of bribes, sexual favors, and one notable instance of a threatened castration and let the salt spray cool and tighten her skin.

She should feel free. She _was_ free.

But….

But she knew that if she looked back over her shoulder she would see smoke rising in the distance from the city she had left behind.

Hawke was back there fighting a battle that Isabela had started.

She had left him a note, that should be good enough. It was better than she usually offered.

Hawke was back there and the qunari would be _enraged._

Not her problem.

Hawke was back there and he was a damn fine lay.

There would be others. She could go look up Zevran.

Hawke was back there and he was her _friend._

 _Bastard._

"There's only one thing to do about this," she murmured to herself. "Put your sexy boots on and go back there to kick some ass with them."

While she was at it, she thought she might just kick Hawke's ass for taking away the freedom she had always had in not caring.


	57. Please Don't Leave Me

How many years had it been since she first met Anders? Six? Seven? Life moved in a blur – periods of boredom punctuated by islands of terror in the river of passing time.

There were islands she would love to go back and visit in that river, though – first smiles, first kisses, the first night spent in his arms. If she let herself she could still feel the first whisper of his magic along her skin when he raised his hand to caress her cheek.

He said he loved her, but that was a different man – a man whose secrets had made him sad, but not cruel.

She stared into Anders' eyes and saw the lies in them when she confronted him about the drakestone and sela petrae.

And the _potion._

The lies cut her like a knife. Cut her more deeply than the Arishok's sword in her gut.

And she, the Champion of Kirkwall, gave Anders the victory without even putting up a fight.

 _Lie to me,_ she thought, feeling something inside her pull tight and then snap. _Lie to me, I promise I'll believe, but please don't leave._


	58. Graffiti

Found scrawled on walls throughout Kirkwall:

 _For the best penetration in Kirkwall, see Isabela at the Hanged Man_

Drawn under that surprisingly literate line is a stick figure of a man with one dagger in his eye and another in his crotch.

 _Mages do it magically._

 _Revolution now!_ Beside which is scrawled _SOD YOUR REVOLUTION_

Found twenty feet up the outer wall of the Gallows in four foot tall letters: _Meredith is frigid, but Orsino's got a fire spell for that_

Carved into the privy wall in the Hanged Man:  
 _I fell for a dwarf storyteller  
A charming and erudite feller  
Just because he ain't tall  
Don't think that he's small  
He plumbed me so deep he found my root cellar_

Under that: _You swore you'd never tell Isabela_


	59. lyrium and lyrium and

It's been years that the song has been threading its way through his life. It hums from the vials in his belt pouch, it winds a basso threnody through his mind when they venture into the Deep Roads, but worst are the choruses it sings down his spine when he has to lay his hands on warm, living spirals of lyrium carved deep into one man's flesh.

The song, the song, the song, so beautiful, so haunting, so thrilling. It makes Justice love this life outside the Fade.

The song, the song, the song, looping its melody across Fenris' body makes Anders hate this life where he could crave something and someone that will always hate him back.


	60. Good Thing I Have Extra Lives

He lost the first to a genlock. Not that he let Anders know that it was more than a flesh wound.

He lost the second to a bad fall off of the Vigil's wall. No, he would not be letting Anders in on that either.

The third was lost to the Warden Commander's mabari. He would never be allowed into the lodge meetings if anyone found out about that one.

The fourth? Drowning.

The fifth? Let it be known that Wade was not always as careful with molten metal as he should be.

The sixth to food poisoning. Or was it poison food? After all the Warden Commander did have enemies.

The seventh was lost to outright poisoning. How was he to know that he would have an allergic reaction when everyone around him was eating it just fine?

By the time the wardens told Anders that he had to give Ser Pounce-a-lot up, he was ready to go. It was getting too dangerous to be a Grey Warden and he only had two lives left.

He did feel a little bad about leaving the others so defenseless – the fool things kept falling down in battles and not getting up until Pounce reminded them where their spare lives were hiding – but sometimes a cat just had to be selfish.


	61. Funeral

Kirkwall was dotted with pyres, what was one more?

Admittedly, this was the only one started with magic, and the only one watched keenly to assure that the deceased stayed that way, but no one really noticed on a day when everyone had their own problems to consider and their own mourning to do.

Marian had noticed and ignored when Sebastian tried to offer her some words of reconciliation. Maker bless Isabela for coming between them before he could speak. She might have done what he wanted, but she had not done it for him, and she did not want to hear his words delivered in the mistaken conviction that she had taken his side.

She had not done it out of some misguided belief in justice – neither the ideal nor the spirit. Nor in vengeance – neither the sin and nor the demon. She had done it to give a man she loved what he dearly needed: rest.

She watched the pyre, the flames consuming what remained of his husk, and felt nothing but tired enough to join him in his rest.


	62. I Thought You'd Be Taller

Sigrun scrutinized the ragged band of refugees tracking through the gates of the Vigil. The Warden Commander had received word weeks before that an old friend in trouble would be coming, bringing along some new friends in trouble.

It sounded kind of fun and romantic actually, too bad she knew Anders. It ruined some of the romanticism. If there was one thing Sigrun knew, it was that legends cast a funny light on the people around them, made them loom larger when the stories got passed around.

On the up side, it meant that people were telling some amazing stories about the dead dwarf who served with the Warden Commander.

On the down side, it meant that she couldn't listen to the stories about other legends without more cynicism than usual.

Still, she was terribly curious about the dwarf she had heard about who traveled with the Champion. She had heard that he was a Paragon of Manliness, with a beard that spread magnificently over his chest, a battle axe that was taller than he was, and a voice that could make mountains tremble when he shouted.

She also heard that he pined forever for a lost love named Bianca and was just waiting for the right woman to come along to make him forget her.

No, she was not just a little twitterpated at the thought of meeting him. Not at all. She totally had not given her armor an extra shine that morning when the runner had come with the news that the group was nearly there.

Picking out the dwarf in the group was easy enough.

He was… not what she had expected. If his beard had spread over his chest, it was to emigrate there from his face. His axe was a crossbow, making him a man who didn't even go for close up fighting.

But his voice. He said something to Anders and laughed that laugh and if mountains didn't tremble, her knees certainly did.

He caught her staring and his smile faded just a little before coming back brighter than ever as he ambled over to greet her.

"You must be Sigrun," he said in that touchable voice of his that wandered in her ear and pulled the lever that switched her brain to "off" and her mouth to "on."

"You're Varric," she said. "I heard about you. There are all kinds of stories about you going around."

He chuckled. "I spread most of the good ones," he admitted and held his arms out away from his sides. "How do they match up?"

She looked him over and thought that with that expanse of chest, she could understand why his beard had decided to travel south. Which led to thoughts of wondering just how far south it had emigrated. Which led to her cheeks turning scarlet and her mouth spilling out the first thing that came to mind. "I thought you'd be taller."

He raised an eyebrow and looked down at himself before shrugging. "So did I."


	63. Love Me

She waited for him for years, watching him go from one lover to another, leaving a trail of red scarves in his wake, but he never turned his eyes to her. Not that way. She was always the friend, the third wheel, the little sister at most.

She never understood how he couldn't see it. She was _terrified_ that he did see it and ignored it.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that none of this turned out like I'd hoped. Especially… with you."

How did he not hear the words behind it? Simple words. A simple meaning: _Love me._


	64. Protect Me

He holds the child in his hands for the first time – his child. His daughter, Bethany, and there is a moment when her eyes meet his and widen that he feels as though they share a perfect communion that he has missed since her namesake's death so many years before.

"I promise," he tells her in response to that look.

Merrill is exhausted, but she smiles up at him when he speaks. "What are you promising, _da len?"_

Carver brushes a thumb along the delicately pointed curve of his daughter's ear and says, "I promise that I will always protect her."


	65. I Eat, Drink, and Sleep Awesome

"'I eat, drink, and sleep awesome.' Come on. Run with it."

The marketing team muttered among themselves, shuffled papers, surreptitiously checked their phones or tapped on their laptops. No one seemed too pumped up by the standard Monday morning brainstorming meeting.

One of the newer guys offered, "Be as awesome as Hawke. Dragon Age 2."

There were a few groans and myriad head shakes.

"Anything else?"

Everyone tried to look anywhere but at the marketing manager.

"Come on. How hard can this be?" he cajoled. "'I eat, drink, and sleep awesome.'"

Finally, one of the senior designers coughed and held up his tablet for everyone to see.

"That's it!" There were nods, murmurs of agreement, and a laugh from one of the interns.

Later that month, new marketing materials were released with Varric's face and Dragon Age 2's new official unofficial tagline.


	66. Lock it Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small piece I found hiding in my tumblr drafts. 
> 
> Fenris and Hawke and secrets kept.

The mansion is bigger than it seems with so many rooms that Fenris never enters. When Hawke asks why, he says he has everything he needs in the bare space he occupies; that the unopened rooms are in worse condition than the ones he calls home. 

Lies. 

But he knows Hawke, who would rifle through drawers, open wardrobes, pick locks, all to find old shackles, lost collars, slavers’ whips and abstract stains that tell concrete stories. Memories are locked behind those doors, just where they belong.


End file.
